


Loki- A tale of seidr and blood

by Helo_Belo_99



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Loki (Marvel), Bruce Banner Is a Good Bro, Confused Steve Rogers, Hurt Loki (Marvel), Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Loki (Marvel) Does What He Wants, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Precious Peter Parker, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Sarcasm, Second Chances, stoki - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:47:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25638277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helo_Belo_99/pseuds/Helo_Belo_99
Summary: What if Thor brought Loki along with him after facing the Dark Elves in space during the events of the dark world and manages to save him?What will Loki do when as a prisoner in the Avengers Tower, he discovers seals upon his magic that are centuries old?And what role does our dear Captain America play in all of this?
Relationships: Loki/Steve Rogers
Comments: 14
Kudos: 58





	1. Prologue

The beeping of the machines woke him up. He had only ever seen such primitive machines on few planets, seeing as he had last been with Thor, it could only mean that Loki was on Midgard.

For a moment he felt his mind blank, could remember nothing past the face of his not-brother. But slowly, surely memories started to fill his head.

He regained his memories in flashes.

He remembered the feeling of touching the barrier of his cell, the helplessness that came with being trapped. He remembered flashes of madness... of anger... trying to connect with his seidr and feeling the barriers on it... sounding the barrier and finding... Not now!

He remembered the attack on Asgard, the talk of the warriors, the news of his -no! the All-Mother's death and how no one had told him about it. How he had not been taken to see her final journey to Valhalla.

The monitors started beeping faster and faster.

He remembered Thor coming to his cell, asking his help. Remembered escaping from Asgard through on of the many rifts in space. Remembered the elf, his warrior and his sword. The sword that ran though him, in through his chest and out through his back.

His ears were filled with the rush of his blood and the noise of the machines around him. He was starting to pant.

He remembered dying. He had clearly felt the bliss of cold, of nothingness, of the endless embrace of the darkness he had always known would come with the end. He had died and burned his magic, shattered the barrier!

He felt hands on him, sharp stabs in his arms, burning that quickly spread throughout his arms and continued to spread and spread. The blackness closed on him just as fast and suddenly he was back to being unconscious.

-

The occupants of the room watched the thrashing man quickly fall limp in the hospital bed, out so quickly it surprised even the doctors. This wasn't how Thor responded to Earth medicines. But the thought that now they knew how to subdue the Loki was indeed very relieving.

Banner felt the pleasure filled rumble of Hulk from inside him. Stark felt the tension he had been carrying inside him ease out at last. They had a trump card after all. Whatever Bruce had injected Reindeer Games with, he just had to have shipped by the gallons and everything would be fine. Thor was unclear how to feel, he was glad Loki was fine, it let up the guilt he felt in his heart until this moment. On the other hand, he had secretly hoped the Jotun would pass to wherever the Jotun went and make his life easier. Apparently not, he sighed. He fingered the metal in his pocket as he stood in the healing room.


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki wakes up in the custody of The Avengers and discovers somethings.

The next time he woke up, he instantly remembered that he was on Midgard, courtesy of Thor. He was because of the Aether and that infernal woman of Thor. He remembered being run though, he also clearly remembered dying and coming back. He had felt himself become free, finally, from the controls of Asgard.

He looked around the room. Some kind of hospital, knowing the oaf who had no doubt run to his mortal friends, he was either at a S.H.I.E.L.D. or at the ugly metal building of Ironman.

Looking at the ceiling, he decided it was the later. He waited, if they had tried to heal him, they must be monitoring him and would come to him soon.

He didn't have to wait long. Thor and his mortal pets came in. Hulk and Ironman along with Black Widow and the Captain of this band of heroes.

-

Loki found himself being escorted to his new cell, not much different from the Asgardian dungeon. The past hour or so had been spent with lots of words and threats of which not many were even possible, and finally Loki was taken as prisoner by the Avengers who had decided he was to stay in his "room" with the AI, JARVIS as a sentry. His food would be delivered to his room and he had no reason, or permission, to leave his cell.

He had found this to be the perfect solution for his sudden boon and bane and he had tried very hard to keep the pleasure from showing on his face. He knew the one he had to watch out for, the Widow, had not suspected but he was also aware, the Captain had been paying special attention to him. The one who had volunteered to "walk him to his room."

The walk through the floor was silent and filled with a tension he could not begin to name. He tried his best to act as sullen as he could, to be the perfect defeated villain.

He was finally in his new prison.it was simple and bare and clean. The perfect place for him to strengthen his magic. He glanced down at his hands and the metal that circled his wrists and grinned hard. Thor had always been foolish. 

These magical restrains were the standard fair for powerful sorcerers on Asgard, but what everyone conveniently forgot was that these restraints had been used on his when he was but a babe. modified in size, yes, but strength, no. He had been able to break out of this hold for many centuries. He was sure Frigga had known, but had never said anything about it or Thor would have truly tried to render him powerless. 

With a half smirk, he sat on the cot in the corner and closed his eyes and started meditating on his magic. The universe was in for a very big surprise. He was excited about something after a very long time.

-

The next few weeks were spent with hours upon hours of meditation where he tried his best to regain control of all the suddenly unbound and hence, unchecked magic. Over the past four centuries, there had been a vast amount of accumulation of seidr. It did not help at all that the seidr he had been using for the last few centuries had been just a small fraction of that which he had unchained.

He often grimly thought in these days that in a lesser being, the new seidr would have consumed everything they were. But Loki had always been more magic than even flesh. He had always been able to grasp even the most difficult and obscure branches and pieces of magic.

He had always wondered about it. Frigga had been a Vanir and could do certain magics but by no means had she ever been strong. She had run out of things to teach him when he was but a babe of a hundred and thirty, like a three-year-old Midgardian child. Afterwards his teachers had been the various books in the palace library and the Alphiem and Vanir ambassadors visiting Odin and Asgard. He had on occasion even approached the guild of sorcerers on Asgard, a small group of old maidens who looked no younger than Odin himself. Those had been some of the few people who had accepted him and his magic freely. But as he had grown older, almost all of them had died and with the attitude of the Aesir towards them and magic, it never surprised him that they would choose to go spend the rest of their few centuries elsewhere in peace.

Now he knew the answer to that question he had always silently asked himself and no one else. He was not an Aesir, who had no aptitude for seidr or any of his other arts. No! he was a Jotun, Laufey's get, which meant he was the direct descendant of Ymir, the first frost giant. No wonder he was so magically powerful, it was in his blood, he was a child of Yggadrasil, the world tree connecting the nine realms.

It was around his second week of his stay at the Avengers Tower that he had realized something very important while bitterly thinking about his lack of home and people. He was a frost giant! And he was a powerful sorcerer, if Odin was to be believed, since birth. There was no way he could have been abandoned by his parents or the palace staff. He was the first born of the King, he was the heir of the Casket. He was as powerful as the Casket.

It took him a month of searching his memories of the Jotun books he had read throughout his lifetime but he, finally, remembered that after Ymir, there were no more perfect Frost Giants, possessing strength, wisdom and seidr. Everyone could be any of the two and no one could be all of the three.

He had raged in his small cell upon learning of this. If an Asgardian library had such knowledge then there was no way, his parents were unaware of this fact. While he, himself had never seen a short frost giant, he had also only ever seen his father and his army, who had to have been possessors of strength to be able to make others fear them.

It was in his rage that he had remembered the custom of taking the newborn to the temple of the Norns to have their blessings. He had been found in a temple; such a time old custom could not be different just because they were different races.

When his rage had become silent fury had he let himself think of the fact that he had been found by Odin himself, ALONG with the Casket of Winters.

Which could only mean that Loki had been immensely valued by his people to be placed with such a powerful artifact and that he had not being abandoned but kidnapped. It was only his own seidr that had saved his life when he had taken the shape of an Aesir. The rest had been the work of Odin's cunning mind. Scheming ways to defeat the enemy even after they had surrendered.

Mistreating and making Loki miserable must have been a silent pleasure to him. His entire life had been for the silent and sadistic amusement for Odin and his people.

He remembered reading somewhere that Jotun were wild, not unlike beasts of nature, preferring nature and forests, open spaces and cold places. They were the children of nature and while they were civilized, they weren't tame. This explained so much for Loki who had been suffocated in his chambers and the palace walls. Always longing for the gardens and forests outside.

He felt the surge of power inside him and realized that he needed to calm down, control his power and not alert his wardens about the happenings around him. He took a deep breathe and started on the herculean effort that was trying to channel the torrent of seidr as powerful and harsh as a waterfall.

It was a long road ahead.

\---


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki gets integrated in Tower life, with or without his will.

It had become a new rule that he was to be dining with the Heroes whenever they were in the Tower. The new rule had to have been a result of the dear Captain's well-meaning efforts and Stark's arrogance. He could still remember the drunkard saying, "he is a prisoner, not our guest needing room service."

Sitting on the same table as Barton was as pleasant as pulling out his own nails. The assassin was not much better, always trying to get into his mind and to manipulate him, never realizing that of course, as someone a thousand years older than her, he had far too much experience to be her equal in anything.

Stark in the morning, without his coffee was a torture session Loki often wondered was the real reason for his presence at the table where the rest of those mortals thought 'If we have to suffer, so should you.' This thought always came along with the voice of the doctor for reasons he couldn't be sure of.

The doctor, for all of his faults in his other skin, when human, was the most bearable of them all. He didn't care about Loki in any kind of manner. Sometimes he sensed that his close proximity at the table made the man uncomfortable even, figures, he thought ironically.

What vexed and intrigued him in equal measures was the good old mortal fossil of patriotism, Captain Rogers. The man was too kind, too humble and moderately smart, and yet, he wished to be around Loki. The soldier actively sought him out, in his room, in the kitchen, in the common room where the bookshelves were. Often dragging him to sit beside him in front of the image box called television which never seemed to show anything of importance.

Though Loki would silently admit to himself, and seldom to the infernal man, that the movies had some good content to them. It was almost as good as reading a book, but not quite.

Slowly, surely, he started to grow used to the presence of the blonde around him. The silent company as pleasant as a walk in the gardens used to be. A relief from the noise inside.

Loki still worked on the knots and barriers placed upon his magic, of which are many, but he worked on them a little less. He spent most of his time with Steve, as the man insisted he be called, when he was not on his many missions.

The man perplexed him endlessly. He was almost the paragon of virtue and all things good and the propagandist rot that kings and politicians fed their people. And yet, he desired the company of a man who was nothing like himself. Loki on his best days was one step away from creating anarchy. The chaos of it was so beautiful and thrilling he could never help himself. But it was things like these that were part of his nature that should repel the good old captain but for whatever reason the mortal was doing this, he wasn't deterred in the slightest even by the deadliest of scowls on Loki's part.

"Oh, get on with it already" in such a petulant voice that Loki could never get over it.

Thinking and strategising was what Loki did best and the one most likely to follow after his own thought patterns was the woman, but she did her best to pretend that he didn't exist, as important to her as cutlery was to Asgardians. The whole thing confused and intrigued him in equal measure.

The only consolation Loki had for wasting precious time he could have spent cultivating his seidr was that the mortal was an extremely beautiful annoyance. Loki was aware that spending over a thousand years in the company of Asgardian warriors had left its marks on his psyche, one of which was that he found the blonde, muscular and blue-eyed man to be his ideal type of partner.

But while he was aware that he, Captain was intelligent, it wasn't the type of intelligence that Loki preferred. The man was too gullible and soft-hearted, as Loki's lover, he would not last past the month with his numerous enemies and the people he had annoyed or humiliated wanting retribution.

He refused to even acknowledge that he had even started considering the possibility of being lovers.

-

Today was one such day, where upon hearing the knocking of the door to his personal room or cell as he liked to call it, Loki was instantly aware that today was not a day of meditation or for any kind of seidr.

When a blond head peeked into the room after a moment, he was proven right. Over the past month, the Captain had repeatedly got himself injured on his numerous missions and whenever he healed, he came to see and spend time with Loki.

Were the two of them friends or in any kind of positive relationship, the gesture would have been very sweet, perhaps, but as it was, they were prisoner and warden and the action always annoyed Loki to no end.

He wanted to figure out this man!

Sighing, he got up himself, knowing full well by now that the man was very capable of dragging him out of the room by force if he was reluctant.

When greeted by the complete view of the man, he was made aware of the fact that he was once again injured, this time his arm was in a sling that on this man could only mean he had somehow broken it, "Again?"

By the sheepish expression he was answered with, he must have let his annoyance show. The man had no regard for his own safety, he thought grumpily.

"One would think, getting injured so often, you would learn to be cautious by now." Loki grumbled in similar fashion all the way to the common room with the big 'TV' in it. Loki had himself educated on a basic level on the workings of Midgard but he still had yet to find the use of the annoying source of noise and drama. He had witnessed some kind of meltdown on Stark's part about how the actor in the box wasn't supposed to die so soon. Accompanied with thrown popcorn.

Heathens, the lot of them. No wonder they were Thor's friends. Like calls to like, he supposed.

Today was a new movie that was represented by very badly drawn caricatures, how could the mortals stand to look at something that ugly was another thing that confused Loki, about a girl trapped in a tower that escaped with a thief to see candle lit lanterns in the capital of the state they lived in because they were released on the day of her birthday. The arrogance of humans was something that boggled his mind at every turn.

One of which being that they were the only beings in the universe, which was laughable when confronted with the fact that their space crafts were so puny in power that they couldn't reach even the outer orbit of the closest planet rocks, stars or anything at all.

The longer he watched the film, the more he was getting accustomed to seeing poorly drawn mortals, at least the candles were pretty and the horse was hilarious. He was going to retell this tale to Slephnir whenever he saw him next. He supposed that the art was similar to those found in children's books in Asgard.

The aspect of the movie that he could relate to was how he was being forced to accompany a very gullible and bull headed blonde to do whatever they wished. Both the blondes in question were similarly naïve and clueless about the workings of the world. The thought made him silently snicker and earn a weird look from his blonde.

When the duo managed to land themselves in the tavern, he had to say it, "you are very like the girl, charming people as you cover more land, Captain." His comment was a mere observation but for reasons he would guess later, the blonde blushed.

Somedays Loki thought when such things became of the Captain that he was acting like a maiden smitten with Thor, only he had replaced the Asgardian in the mortal's mind.

But such things were just baseless assumptions, or so he told himself.

He hoped his seidr would free itself soon and he could get away from the Tower filled with mortal nuisances and the blonde Captain that somehow always managed to annoy Loki with his constant sunny moods and good nature. And smiles; Loki didn't think he could forget about them at all.

-

These days the Captain didn't drag him out of the room when he came to Loki. Instead, he would come armed with his artistic materials and books he wished to read and small portraits he kept staring at. He would not trouble Loki with words or idle chatter as anyone else in the position would have.

The Captain was unusually quiet, and when he wasn't, it was just sounding frustrated that were marked by a rare show of frustration where he would tear up whatever he was working on in his art journal that always seemed to fill at a rapid pace.

Four days of this unusual routine and the man finally decided it was time to say whatever he wanted to say.

"I took down S.H.I.E.L.D. last week. All of my friends' life work and in the end, it was yet another cover for Hydra to use and hide behind." Steven looked ready to cry.

Loki personally didn't care at all if some secret mortal organization was hiding in the dark with some dark, nefarious purposes. He was never interested in things the mortals concerned themselves with. The mortals had some good things such as the internet which made acquiring information of any kind incredibly easy, and then there was the fact that Midgard seemed to respect scholars instead of brutes.

Even still, he had no love for anything on the rock of mortals and what they did to each other as long as the rock itself survived for it was the center point of the nine realms and hence important in the one regard.

Yet, despite it all, he found himself putting down the novel he was reading to get up and sit beside Steven. He was not a being who could comfort another. Neither had he ever been comforted by anyone else- except Mother, he thought.

Putting his arms around some one was a very difference when not trying to kill said man. He felt highly awkward and when Steven went stiff in his hold, he retreated, starting to stand up already thinking that this had been such a bad idea, when he was suddenly yanked back in a very muscular hold that was so strong, he struggled to breathe for a second.

"Don't go" the mumbled into his hair were so soft, he almost didn't hear them but then he decided, it was the right thing to do. Turning in the hold, he wrapped his arms around Steven again, this time he went limp against Loki with his head hiding in his neck and black hair.

Soon his skin grew damp and he held the mortal tighter, which was quite contradicting for any other mortal would have crumbled with Loki's strength in a heap of shattered bones. He started singing the lullaby he remembered Frigga sing to him when he would jolt awake in his bed with nightmares of shapeless beings.

"Hush now my story,

Close your eyes and sleep,

Waltzing the waves

Diving the deep

stars are shining bright

Wind is on the rise

Whispering words of Long-lost lullabies"

As he sang, he wondered if it always felt this good to be so close to another.

Neither of them noticed the lights as the dimmed or the blinds that slowly dropped and shadowed the room in darkness. Somehow, they both fell asleep this way, pressed close in a dark room with sad hearts. 

\---


	4. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki finds himself getting hurt and confused. Feelings are always hard to understand.

After waking up in the embrace of the source of his frustrations of months, Loki couldn't quietly contain his shock and hence, Steven was awake. As perhaps the only untouched being on Asgard baring the youngest of babes, he wasn't sure how to handle a situation where he wanted to kick someone out of his chambers but do it with tact.

Looking at Steven at least eased some of his worries, here was also a man, Loki was relatively sure had not been in a situation quite like this and would not mock him for it. Suddenly he was so glad for the Captain's virtuous nature.

In any other situation, he would have found this shade of red on Steven amusing and fetching all at once, but in this moment, he wasn't sure if he was not matching his bed partner.

In the end, the man gave another example of his bravery, "Um, hi?" the words were so uncertain Loki replied to them before he could even think about it, "good morning, Steven."

"So, uh, I guess we fell asleep." The red on his cheeks was spreading down his neck. Loki was almost fascinated, but he couldn't let it be known. "An astute observation, Captain." He made his voice sound droll.

He had expected the embarrassed expression this time. "So,I -uh, I think I should return to my room, now. Yeah."

Loki was entirely unprepared for the pang in his heart when he heard that. Before he could even try to understand what was the cause of these unexpected feelings, he felt the blonde shift, trying to untangle his legs and-"Oh!" he gasped.

Now he was completely certain his face was a matching shade of red with the Captain's. "I" – "You"

They both fell silent again, frozen with Steven's thigh lay pressed against Loki's blood-filled cock, their arms around the other, breathes mingled as they tried to over come the shock.

Steven shifted his thigh again, his eyes wide, his expression surprised when Loki felt a moan pass his lips without his permission.

He felt himself close his eyes when Steven pressed his thigh harder against him. He felt his back hit the sofa, the Captain seemed to fascinated with the sorcerer and started moving his thigh in a short, abrupt rhythm and suddenly Loki felt a litany of moans and grunts fall from his lips that he knew he would be mortified by when he could just think again- but it felt so...

Then suddenly he snapped his eyes open, Steven had stopped and shoved himself off to the floor and was now moving towards the door as if Loki had set his hair on fire.

Then the door snapped shut with a resounding bang in the suddenly quiet room. He wasn't sure how things had come to this. He had not been this vulnerable in front of anyone ever. It was a different kind of helplessness he had never felt before and as he watched the closed door and the empty door, he didn't think he would ever want to.

With a sigh he felt himself deflate. He lay there for the rest of the morning, refusing to think about anything that had transpired that morning. He knew if he let himself think about the happenings of the day, he would spiral down the self-hate and anxiety he only felt when Thor had proved himself to be a better Asgardian and warrior than Loki in front of the court.

But even as he tried to block all thoughts of everything, one sneaked past all his defenses. 'You have managed to disgust and chase away the Captain, Argr.'

He started his daily meditation when he started to feel the burn in his eyes, there were somethings he couldn't help, chasing people had always been one of them. He should really be used to it by now.

The next morning Loki decided not showing up at the dining table would be more suspicious than not. Decision made; he strode out of the room. He knew Steven was a shy man, he would not speak about what had transpired in his room any more than Loki would.

A colder part of him voiced that if he had said something then Loki could also say something about why those events came to be. He didn't think people would look kindly upon a grown man shedding tears, no matter the realm.

Another part of him wanted to believe in the fact that Steven would continue to be the upstanding mortal that he was and not say anything out of some absurd made-up notion in his head such as respect.

Breakfast that day was an odd fair where everyone but Steve and Loki ate copious amounts of food, and sprayed it around- Thor, mother would be so disappointed that even after fifteen hundred years, Thor couldn't keep his mouth close to eat his food.

He moved his eyes away from the disgusting sight to the Captain sitting opposite to him, and saw his look away. It made him wonder if he had worn the same disgusted expression Loki had upon seeing Thor, while seeing Loki.

He felt the little appetite he had managed to preserve through the meal wither away at the thought. He pushed his chair, and conversation around the table stopped. With a "excuse me," he left the room, uncaring about the eyes that might have watched his go.

In his room, he locked the door and looked at the ceiling. "JARVIS, could you bar entrance to my room to everyone in this building?"

"I'm afraid I can not do that Mister Laufeyson, given your current status and reason for being in the tower I cant follow with your request." The generic cool accented voice came from somewhere near the ceiling, dousing Loki in a low seething anger.

"Then could you bar entrance to everyone but Thor, im sure him being the only one that can actually contain me makes it an acceptable request." He kept his voice neutral and dry; he was done with being anything but uninterested in Midgardian affairs.

With renewed determination he hadn't felt since he tried to decided he was going to walk into Yggdrasil. He had been informed by his mother that it was not a possible aspiration and that he was wasting his time, his energy and seidr. But he also remembered the look of astonishment and a silent pride when he had told her it was possible because of her teaching lessons over the years; which of course had been a complete lie. While Queen Frigga of Vanaheim, Goddess of Family and Marriage was a skilled and formidable opponent, their skills were entirely different, on every level. But he had liked the look of pride on her face as she had praised him. It had been his moment of acknowledgment and achievement. Out side of Thor's giant, drowning shadow, he was something.

He had known no one else had ever been able to properly appreciate this skill of his aside from the magic weilders, sorcerers and the handful of seidmadir that he had met over the thousand years of being alive and travelling. With or without permission from Asgard and the All-Father.

Permission from All-Father brought to his mind the consequences of Odin's actions and war mongering ways. And how it had affected him, he knew in that instance, he was going to reverse them, make Odin rue the day he had set foot in Jotunheim to wage war and especially, stealing Loki.

With such titillating and energizing thoughts, he set off to work harder than he had in months on his seidr. He knew he had freed a good amount of the upper surfaces from the bonds and seals, he was well aware that currently he was more powerful than he had been in centuries, but Loki was not an impatient man, being a trickster God had been and would always be as much about the timing of his works and actions as much as the actions or words themselves. He had over the centuries well learned the lesson that even the most well meaning of words or gestures at the wrong time would lead to punishments and humiliation.

'Living in Asgard was a life full of extremely useful lessons', he thought as he set to work on all the seals he could reach in this stage of unbinding. Until he had the full possession of all of his seidr, he wasn't going to give his hand away.

Over the course of the next few months, life in the captivity of the Avengers was very strange and very familiar for Loki. He woke up every day to the first rays of the Midgardian sun peeking through the blinds and would spend the next three hours meditating on his magic and his memories to make sure that every lesson and book on magic that he had read over the years was still intact in his memory. Afterwards he would spend an hour on the bindings in himself and feel pleased as he felt more and more of his magic freeing.

It always astonished him, that there was so much Seidr inside of him, that he felt he was stuck in a never ending cycle of freeing his magic, but every morning he would feel his reserves of magic expanded more than before and he would at once feel both elated and betrayed by his potential and Odin's backstabbing respectively.

Then would be time for breakfast, when the clock in the room would reach nine with its hour hand. Breakfast always proved to be interesting affair. By now only the Spider, if even her, had any kind of inclination that all was not well between Loki and Steven, a friendship – if that is what they called it when the mood struck them- was something grudgingly accepted and willingly forgotten in the first two months that Loki had lived here.

Sitting on the table, always opposite Steven, was an amusing affair now that Loki had come to terms with some facts. One, the happenings of that day weren't shared by the Captain with anyone. Two, Steven seemed at once both embarrassed and intrigued by the events that took place between them. Three, Steven had proved himself to be the shyest creature Loki had ever encountered when concerned with his sexual experiences and facing them. He had caught the blonde stealing looks at himself and depending upon Loki's reaction to this, he would either flush very fetchingly or pale rather concerning, but always quickly look away.

Loki was not entirely sure what was going on inside the Captain's questionably sane mind where he stubbornly held onto something that was clearly stopping him from talking to him like he desperately wanted him to.

It soothed something raw inside his heart, on a day when he would admit to possessing one, to see that he, his nature, had not disgusted the other man at all. He was glad for his years of being a member and victim of the Asgardian Court in equal measures that he was exceedingly adept at reading and understanding people and their behaviour.

He wasn't completely sure but as he spent the next three months watching the Captain, he started developing the theory that perhaps he wasn't the only one desiring after the other between the two of them.

But he grew certain of it when he cornered the most reasonable person that lived in this steel and metal tower of idiocy, Dr Bruce Banner.

While he knew, and was often informed during the first month of his captivity by Stark, that he must be terribly afraid of the person who had smashed him into the metal floor, leaving behind a very Loki-sized dent. But of course, he wasn't.

Loki loved the chaos that he Doctor caused in the world just by existing. As a scholar or as a berserker, he was forever leaving his mark on the world. As the God of Chaos, he always appreciated beings like the Doctor whenever he met them. And always he tried his best to help them, to the best of his abilities of which were many or to the fulfillment of his chaos strategy, which were also many. He was a very benevolent Deity.

And also, he liked Bruce Banner, such an unassuming man with such great potential.

Since living in the tower, he had eavesdropped on many a conversations which were of varying importance. Such as how Stark had been cured of his Palladium Poisoning. How he and his paramour- who deserved some kind of certification for being able to stand the man and trust him with herself- were always at odds. He found out how Hawkeye had been cleared of his charges against him by S.H.I.E.L.D. due his satisfactory psyche evaluation. But also, that they were so routine, especially for him who had recruited the Black Widow instead of assassinating her as commanded, that he had known exactly what to say, something he had to share with the Widow when she had cornered him after his 'episode.'

Therefore, he was well aware of the mortals' assumption that the Hulk was a mindless being, incapable of rationale thought or otherwise. How this assumption fueled the fire of prejudice and hate and fear and caution against the man himself. But what no one else seemed to realise was that the Captain often directed the Hulk in battle against 'Doombots' and other such bizarre creatures or beings. If he was capable of this amount of co-operation, then the Hulk was by no means a mindless beast.

Hence, when he knew the assassins were out on some kind of mission, regardless that S.H.I.E.L.D. was down and out for the count- though he was well aware that a man like Fury would not give up on what he must consider his 'lifework,' Stark was out attending some gala that his lover the formidable Ms. Potts had all but dragged him by his ear to, the Captain was busy in the gym, he approached the scientist in his own lab.

Upon seeing him in his personal space, as most would do, Banner did not start ranting or demanding that he leave immediately. He seemed confused and asked, "Can I help you with something?"

Loki was ever so grateful for not having to work to make the amenable environment, answered his question without any layers of meanings to his words. "I would like your help in figuring out a query I have." He made sure to keep his tone polite, it was not every day that someone was being reasonable or agreeable to Loki.

Scratching the side of his head- a nervous gesture- Banner replied, "uh, sure. What is your question?"

"While watching the 'TV' I saw a couple who were of the same sex. Is that something that is acceptable on Earth?" Loki made sure to sound reasonably confused as well as to sound out his source as well as to refer to Midgard as 'Earth' since he recalled all the times the mortals made Thor bend to this same whim that they had. He knew it was a want for familiarity.

"huh? Well, I guess they must have aired something like the parade." He mumbled, out loud Banner told Loki, "It is not acceptable every where or by everyone. It was recently even made legal to be in a gay relationship. Before this century, people of who preferred their own gender romantically were criminalized and arrested. Why does Asgard accept gay relationships?" Banner was truly a scholar, the more he talked the more he got the glint in his eyes that Loki had seen in many scholars throughout his time.

"No, being an Ergi, or gay as your people say it, is also punishable on Asgard. It is a great matter of shame for the family of the Ergi, such as myself." He revealed the information about himself knowing fully well it would make the conversation and alive. Sometimes, Loki thought, he truly lived for the chaos he could cause.

"Urh. Is that... is that why?" Banner nervously trailed off again but Loki had no trouble finishing his words. "Is that why I am so hated on Asgard, yes, it is one of the reasons." He silently enjoyed the show of emotions on the man's face. As an intelligent being, if he hadn't now, he would sometime later, connect the fact that the perfect Thor was not nearly as perfect as he thought. He knew it would not sit well with Banner, his tone of voice had shown his support or perhaps his silent acceptance of ergi.

"it seems space is not all that different from Earth." Banner's observation was a bitter one, almost as if he was disappointed. Now, Loki was going to have fun, he internally smirked.

"No, I would not be so fast to club the entire of space in the same category. Being an Ergi is unacceptable only on Asgard. The rest of the Nine Realms are very accepting of such persons. It is the only reason I am still alive; Queen Frigga was originally from Vanaheim and argued my case against Odin, who wished to erase the blemish on his family name." He smiled bitterly, both for himself and for Banner.

"Ah, I'm sorry," Banner was proving himself to be sensible and sensitive, such a rare species on Asgard that he had forgotten they even existed, barring the existence of Steven.

"There is no need for that. As you can imagine, they are a very stagnant and idiotic race. It is somehow against their honour to have relations with the same sex, even when Odin's army often finds pleasure in their prisoners regardless of gender," he had to pause, it was such great joy to diminish Asgard's golden image in one's mind. "They give the excuse of childbirth to other realms if they ever execute a foreigner living on the land for their ways. No one in the Nine is prepared to face Odin's anger after he razed Jotunheim to the ground, Jotunheim will probably burn into the nether in few thousand years or so."

The look of horror on Banner's face was something he found deeply amusing. Perhaps the Captain wasn't the only naïve one in this building. But like any scholar, horror or not, he powered through to ask his own queries.

"The other planets are not concerned about their birth rate? Or that Asgard is killing other species aliens on its land?" the curiosity in his voice was palpable.

"Asgardians are ignorant of many things in their honour-filled lives. There are many ways for Argr people or couples to have their own blood children, but such things aren't natural to the Aesir." He was glad he had started this conversation, even without the confirmation he had acquired about the Captain and his sexuality.

"There are ways to have children for same sex couples?" Banner's voice was filled with astonishment.

"Yes. The most common way is to take the seed or the egg of both the partners and turn one of it into an egg or a seed, to form a fetus and incubate it a machine under the care of healers. There are magical ways as well. Or, for shapeshifters such as myself, it is a matter of magical strength and being able to carry the full term, if not, the healers or other sorcerers would happily incubate the fetus for them. Children are generally considered a gift, especially in the Nine Realms, due to our long lives, most species aren't too fertile."

"How can you change the sperm or the egg to anything else??" Banner couldn't have looked more shocked if Loki had hit him in the face.

"There are many machines in across space which can do so, and more. Unfortunately, Asgard doesn't have one such itself, being a shapeshifter and a powerful sorcerer, I always knew I had no use for such a thing and never pursued the knowledge." He truly was regrettable, an intellectual discussion with Banner would be pleasurable. "But, with my magic, I can change the structure of the cells in the egg or seed to change to another. The life essence would remain the same and the cells would rearrange to perform a different part of the same function. This is the most I can translate for a non-magical user."

"YOU rearrange the cells in the sperm to become an egg?!"

Loki took a little offense to that, and he knew his voice was defensive when he said, "I am a healer as well as a powerful sorcerer. Naturally, I can handle such a admittedly delicate case of matter manipulation."

"But the sperm and egg have different parts, except the nucleus, nothing is similar in them!" Ah, the astonishment of the unseen. "Except for the membrane and the nucleus, there is no need for the other parts of them. Fertilization is done by my seidr which negates the need for the other parts in any case. I can only imagine the machines do something similar in nature."

"Have you ever done it before?" He hurriedly added, "Did the fetus survive?"

"I was quite young when I read about it in a very interesting book in the Vanaheim library. I selected a pair of female cats to experiment on. The first two attempts were, uh, not successful. But the third attempt was successful, though it didn't carry to term. My next attempt was fully successful. The kitten was however quite small in size but didn't seem to suffer from any deformities. Though, he lived a longer life than is common for Vanir mountain cats. Perhaps, the presence of my magic?" He shrugged carelessly.

"You did it without any directions?" Banner had perhaps decided he liked the shocked expression on his face.

"The theory had been described in the book and I learnt from my mistakes, as any competent scholar would do." He was pleased by his accomplishment.

"You only experimented on cats?" Such curiosity, "I had thought to do it on a pair of birds that were both male and the reason for my research. But in the end, I decided against it. The tome said nothing of egg laying creatures and I thought the pair would be quite distraught if they lost the egg like the cat had the first time. Birds are very emotional in this regard, surprisingly more so than other egg layers."

"I think I am going to think about this." Banner had already turned to his workstation even as he muttered his farewell and entirely forgot about Loki.

Loki did not mind at all. He had accomplished what he had came for, he had also diminished Thor's shine in the Berserker's mind and perhaps added Midgard to the list of realms who would accept Argr in their society more completely if Banner proved to be as efficient in this as he did most other things.

With a small, genuine small, Loki left the lab for his room. 

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NOTE: the words ARGR or ERGI as you can guess are the norse words equivalent to gay or homosexual.


	5. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Repressing feelings can only work for so long.

Looking out of the window of his chambers of the tower, he noticed perhaps for the first time that since he had come back to Midgard, the seasons had changed. When he had first looked out of the very same window to access his surroundings, the trees had been bare, snow had covered the streets and everything else that eyes could see. Now, the trees were lush and green, few and sparse though they were, except the central park that was not actually at the center of the city.

He supposed he was not surprised at the passage of time. Time, for an immortal such as him who had seidr in his veins would live for thousands of years yet. But, the glaring fact that the seasons in Midgard could change was perhaps what drove home that he had left his life behind.

It was not to say that Loki had never contemplated life after his fall from grace, quite literally. But he had never had the time to dwell on it for more than a few moments at any given time, until now.

Between believing he was falling to his death and would become a part of Yggdrasil when he fallen far enough, being tortured at the hands of Thanos and his elk, being forced to take over Midgard, sitting in an Asgardian jail cell, finding out his mother had died- probably as a consequence to his actions, finding the bindings on his magic, he never had the time for idle thoughts.

Now, he looked at the mortals as they rushed about life as if it would end any moment now- which it might- looking like a mad ant hive, he found that there was nothing more to be gained today. The bindings on his magic were almost released and he needed to rest before he could start working on him again.

He closed his eyes and openned his mind.

All at once, he felt overwhelmed, he had been avoiding this- perhaps for good reason. But it was done now, he could only go through them.

The very first thing he felt when he opened the gates in his mind behind which he had shoved all his emotions was the profound grief Mother's passing had caused in him. His face grew wet, his breathing shuddered, his hands shook and he finally, finally allowed himself to think about what had always been in his mind.

"It was all my fault."

It roared in his head, past the blood rushing in his ears, past the heat he felt in his head and the cold he felt in his limbs. The thought swirled in his head, danced before his mind's eye.

He remembered her smiles, laughs, glares and tears. Her eyes the colour of the Vanaheim oceans and her hair the colour of honey. Her slender, calloused hands, her voice as she berated him for yet again causing mayhem in the palace. Her warmth and her hugs.

Loki knew he would regret not talking to her for the rest of his life. The one last time he could have talked to her, when she had come to him. He remembered her tears, her frustration and disappointment at him.

He was such a bad son, no wonder he had caused her death. He was nothing but a curse for those around him. His mind supplied him with another image of her; broken body, twisted limbs, vacant eyes and screaming lips. Bloodied broken hands and a gapping wound in her belly, her perfect, well maintained gown torn and shredded in various places and bloodied in others.

He wasn't aware when he started, but he screamed out his grief, long and hard. Voice shrill and hoarse, breathy and desperate, cracking and disjointed.

When he stopped once, he screamed again, and again and again. Until there was nothing left to give.

He didn't know when he fell to the floor, didn't feel it when his palms bled from blunted nails, didn't notice when his voice grew weak, didn't notice when he tore at himself. His throat, his neck, his face, his chest.

Neither did he feel it when he tore the tunic he wore with his blood covered nails. Or when he scratched his chest.

When he felt the press of handcuffs on his wrists, he scratched at his wrists with broken nails and locked fingers.

"... you will wear these while you reflect why you should not have turned your brother's feast into mice, Loki...."

Her frowning face, her swaying hair. The rustling of her long skirts. The clattering of her heeled shoes. Her big hand holding his tiny one as she pulled him along.

"NO!" He screamed again, his voice guttural and wet. Almost as if his throat was bleeding.

"... I am modifying them again, your seidr keeps expanding..." Her voice was at once proud and exasperated.

He felt his desperation rise. He wanted them off!

"... You are getting to big for this, Loki. . .These probably the only ones that can hold you now..." Her hair had been braided with flowers that day as she tilted her head to meet his eyes. Reached up to brush his hair. Her smile was sad.

'I always made her sad!'

He wanted them off!

OFF!

"OFF!" He screamed, as he tore away a manacle and flung it at the glass wall; just like the wall of his prison cell.

He tore the remaining one with his teeth, taking flesh and blood with it as he spat out the broken metal.

Away from him at last, the manacles seemingly took the last of his strength with it as he slumped to the floor covered in his blood.

He felt a bone deep exhaustion that left him feeling lethargic and sluggish, as if his veins were filled with tar.

He slowly closed his eyes as he felt the blood run down his cheeks.

Some floors above Loki's, the Avengers had all gathered in the gym for some much-needed team bonding exercises. The sound of screaming had alerted all of them and Tony had asked J.A.R.V.I.S. about the source. Every one in the room was surprised, some more than others. In their indivisual ways, they had all accepted Loki's grudging presence in the tower.

It helped that all of them were assured by the magic cancelling handcuffs and J.A.R.V.I.S.s' 24/7 surveillance. It also helped that apart from the common room's book shelves and the dining table, he didn't wander around the tower at all, except for the one visit to Bruce's lab months ago.

Tony knew he spoke for all of them when he thought they had grown used to Loki and had started thinking of him as part of the furniture. He never spoke, nor was he ever spoken to. The sorcerer moved silent as a ghost and avoided everyone who wasn't Steve.

Watching through on the gym projector as he screamed and clawed off his skin was highly disturbing. Seeing him tear his wrists bloody had been nauseous. Looking at the projection as he tore and bit away the metal handcuffs and fainted made Tony want to join him in dreamland

That man was, for whatever reason, not in his slightly sane mind. Loki had not used any extraordinary strength. He had suffered what Tony was willing to bet was a panic attack and had not rationally removed his magic cancellers.

'Which means, he has always been able to take them off.' His mind was working a mile a second as he thought about all the implications of the fact.

'Loki wanted to stay here?!' Tony Stark was sure he had never said anything more absurd in this year, considering who he was and what he did, that thought alone was frightening.

He was about to turn to face the others as his mind crashed for some precious seconds, when he suddenly became aware of the new activity on the screen.

The injuries Loki had inflicted on himself in the past eight minutes were starting to glow. It started from his face, moving down gently, almost like dripping water. As the glow of his injuries brightened, a new shimmer of gold was added to the screen. Kneeling beside Loki's prone form was the faded image of a beautiful woman of honeyed hair and golden skin. She had her hands touching the sides of Loki's face.

When those injuries were healed, she gently touched his neck with one hand and his open chest with another. The glow on these injuries was brighter, as if capturing the rays of burning sun. Then the glow remained just in his chest and slowly dimmed in size and brightness until it too, was gone.

She delicately held his wrists in one hand each, covering the wounds with them. This time the light in the room was blinding. When vision gained strength once more, the woman had her lips pressed to Loki's head as tears streamed her face, when they dropped on Loki's face, they glittered like diamonds in the light and one sank beneath the skin while the other hardened and rolled off to lay on the floor beside his ear, glowing like an ember, the same shade of gold as the light that healed his wounds.

With a final brush of her hand against his hair, the woman rose to her feet.

The Avengers watched the strange happenings with gapping jaws. No one knew what was going on. Times like these, this being the first since the battle of New York, made them realise that Loki was not a normal alien in any capacity. He was a sorcerer. That he dealt in magic, something beyond their comprehension.

Tony's mind whirled about as he thought of what great resources lay just within his reach and he had never bothered to use. Being reminded of his theory from a moment ago, he felt his brain buzz with all that Loki could do and hadn't; because he wanted to stay in the Tower.

Bruce felt stunned, watching Loki butcher himself with his own hands had been a startling scene full of horror that triggered similar memories of his own. Watching the golden magic of the woman had done had filled him with peace. He suddenly remembered the conversation he had had with Loki months ago. Magic could create even life!

Steve hadn't been able to move as he watched the man he had befriended and shown his weakest self to, fall prey to his own weakness, he didn't know what had caused it in Loki and he didn't not need to know it. He just wanted to comfort him but he felt frozen in place, horrified and almost sick with worry. Then, when he had finally been able to move, the blonde woman had come to Loki. Watching her gently heal him reminded Steve of his Maa as she scolded him after his many fights, and suddenly, he was sure, this was Loki's mother. He sagged with relief, 'Loki would be fine.'

And Thor, could only watch in disbelief as he uttered a soft, "Mother" that echoed in the silent room.

When the woman disappeared from the projector's frame and appeared in front of them, they all startled.

It was Thor that stepped forward towards her, hesitant and unsure, eyes filled with confusion.

"Mother, how are you-"

"I am disappointed in you, Thor." The gentleness of her voice was a stark contrast to her words even as her expression remained neutral.

"You have stagnated in the progress of becoming a great warrior. You have failed your duties as a prince of Asgard. You have also failed to fulfil your responsibilities as a brother you always claim yourself to be." Her voice filled the room with her presence, gentle and soothing like a bell yet sharp in contrast to the heavy silence in the room.

She held up her hand when Thor made to defend himself. "All of this, because of an insignificant mortal woman filled with airs of arrogance and doubt. I protected her with my life," Thor's face contoured in grief and melancholy, "For Asgard's debt to her; of making you capable of seeing beyond yourself. Her role into the happenings of the universe was only this much, yet she meddled in the convergence and woke the Dark Elves," the Queen's disdain showed even through her expressionless face, " caused the Nine Realms to almost collapse among themselves and set in motion things far beyond her comprehension that have far reaching consequences that will haunt Yggdrasil for millennia. And, discarded you when she realised it was beyond her capabilities to keep up. Yet, here you are. Disregarding everything your family has worked so hard to achieve for you."

Thor looked ashamed and chastised but the All-Mother had more to say.

"In your heart you hold Loki responsible for foiling your coronation, thinking he wanted the crown for himself. What you never understood yet he always did was the responsibility the King has towards his people." She levelled him with a stare so direct and heavy, he looked at her gown's helm, unable to hold her gaze.

"While you dismissed your duties as Prince to go gallivanting with your foolish, sycophantic friends, your brother studied the realms and their happenings. Doing YOUR duties because you couldn't be bothered to do them. He always knew Odin favoured you, that the crown was yours, its responsibilities were yours as well, yet he did he did it for his love for you. Foolish of him." She paused then as if to gather her thoughts.

"He realised his mistake when Odin decided to crown you King. And you had never worked a day in your life. Did not know the duties you had to perform. Didn't understand the importance of the throne beyond your need to acquire it."

"What no one in the Royal Court and Council will ever say is; not one of them wanted you to be King. You are not fit for bearing the burden of responsibility. Your brother on the other hand has managed to impress them all despite; Odin's clear hatred and disdain for him. It is only the fear of Odin Borrson that stopped them from replacing you."

"What you and your father never quite understand is that Asgard being a warrior race is not a hereditary monarchy; your claim to kingship can be challenged at any moment. It is only because of Odin's schemes that no one follows tradition. His bloodthirsty nature is well known. There are many capable leaders in the Court itself who would be great candidates for your role." She sighed heavily as she closed her eyes as if to brace herself.

"But as long as Odin is alive, he will not make anyone else his heir. Even after his death; you have believed the throne to be your right for far too long that I do not believe you capable of giving it up. It only means you have to become eligible for the great honour and responsibility that is the throne of Asgard and the well-being of her people."

"But, Mother, I AM worthy! I am eligible for the crown!" He lifted Mjolnir in the air and waved it frantically, desperate to prove himself. But no such luck.

The Queen clicked her tongue and shook her head. "Mjolnir doesn't show you are worthy, Thor, it shows you are loved. Have you forgotten that it is a gift to you from your brother? As long as he loves you, Mjolnir is yours. It applies to anyone and not just you, which is why only your father, you and I could ever lift it. It is no great test of worth, it is a test of love. One that you clearly do not return. Some days I am sad to think that you might have never returned it." Her voice took a quite somber tone to it.

"It frightens my heart to think what the house of Odin has made of my darling boy." Her eyes shut and spilled tears down her face that dripped off to the mats and shattered into tiny sparks and disappeared.

"Odin destroyed his home and killed his people. Kidnapped him and the Casket. Raised to hate everything he is and crushed him whenever he shone too brilliantly." She opened her eyes then, glaring at Thor. "No more of this. I could never protect him, being just as much a prisoner as he was. But now we are both free, in different ways." She laughed then, a wild sound that bounced off the walls of the room. "I am here to give you one last chance, Thor. Loki did not need my help today, like myself, he is a healer. I came because I wanted to. To warn you; if you do nothing now, you will lose your brother forever. You are both my sons, and I love you dearly and want the best for you. Especially, you, Thor. Loki is used to being dependent on no one, but you need him. There are dark times ahead."

She stepped forward to embrace him, putting her arms around his broad shoulders and resting her cheek on his shoulder, when his arms came around her in desperation, she tightened her hold, and then, she faded away.

Where she had stood, on the mat lay a tiny marble the size of a nail, the colour of his mother's seidr. Thor picked it up and clenched it in his fist, spun around and exited the room, leaving it empty in silence.

The Avengers looked at each other in disbelief and astonishment, there was no way a ghost of a QUEEN from ASGARD had come to visit her very much alive sons, and it was all witnessed by them.

"Is my house haunted now?!"

"I knew ghosts were real!" that had predictably come from Clint. "You think I can talk to the ghost of Arjun?" Steve didn't want to know who that was. 

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	6. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Thor's feelings come to light. Some people are not as golden as they seem at a surface glance.

It took only some moments before the Avengers were able to function again, when they decided they needed to check on the cause of the commotion that had occurred.

Led by Steve like a file of ducklings they filled into Loki's room and, perhaps unsurprisingly found Thor sitting a distance away from Loki who was still lying on the floor. But it was not the presence of Thor or the absence of Loki's shirt that had scared or surprised the group of mortals. 

No, what stunned the team was the fact that Loki had turned blue! It was not the kind of blue that came with being too cold. Or the kind where a person was too pale and their thin skin showed their blue veins.

No, it looked like someone had dipped Loki in a pool of deep blue paint. It covered him entirely. From his face to his arms to his neck to his chest, down his stomach and disappeared into the waistband of his leggings. It even covered his feet, the bottom of his foot that Steve could see was a light lavender. He didn't know what to think.

Were it the only unusual thing about him, Steve might have recovered quickly? He was not entirely sure about even that. But, no, Loki was changed in more ways that just his colouring. His entire body, from his forehead and cheeks to his neck and shoulders to his arms that went down his wrists, his chest that ran along his flanks, and even his feet were covered in scars. Or what looked like scars. They were raised lines. And swirls, and circles.

As an artist he could instantly see that there was some consistency in all the patterns, symbols. They were all neat and detailed, a closer look revealed that they were not lines but what looked like some kind of letters, like the one letter he had seen of an Indian soldier he had seen during the war.

They were extremely small, detailed and delicate and looked like a language he had never seen before; he was sure he was looking at an alien language. 'Was this some kind of curse?'

It looked so beautiful that it caught him off guard to think it might be something that was hurting Loki. He knew that the lady who had appeared in Loki's room was his mother but that did not ease all of his worries. Even if he had seen the clear love that shone in her eyes for both Thor and Loki, he knew she was dead.

As a Christian, he had trouble not immediately associating the presence of a ghost, when he had got over the shock of it, as a manifestation of evil.

He was not sure how much it had helped to have a dead person, a ghost, perform magic on his Loki. Even if it had been beautiful magic.

It didn't register in his mind that he had claimed ownership of Loki in his thoughts, he had better things to worry about.

"When did Reindeer Games turn into the smurf?" Tony, it seemed, had regained the full functions of his mouth, again, in any other circumstance Steve might have found it amusing, now he just found it annoying.

"My brother has always been like this." Thor's voice was subdued, very much unlike his usual boisterous tone.

"So, you're a giant smurf too, Thunder Dome?" "Do all Asgardians secretly look like this?" Bruce and Tony exclaimed at the same time.

"My brother is not an Asgardian. He is a Frost Giant. He is from another realm." Thor sounded as if saying the words pained him. All this time, he had not once looked away from Loki's prone figure lying on the floor as he sat leaning against the glass window.

"When you said he was adopted, I didn't think it meant an inter- species thing." Tony was once again being insensitive but the thought had also occurred in Steve's mind, he just had not been able to ask him. Thor looked like he was deeply sad about something.

"A thousand years ago, at the end of the Asgard-Jotun war, my father took the two most important things on Jotunheim. The Casket of Ancient Winters that sustains their world." He paused, heaving a sigh. "And, the first-born child of King Laufey."

"That guy is royalty no matter where he goes." Steve didn't think anyone else heard Clint's grumbling.

"But he didn't look like that until now. I am sure if he was all blue blue and scarred you people would have found out he was adopted sooner." Steve desperately wanted to teach Tony some tact. It was so unlike Howard that he could never get used to it.

"Loki is a shape shifter; when father touched him, he took the form of an Asgardian. Upon his return to Asgard, he declared that Mother had given birth to another son." Steve wondered if Thor felt his brother would disappear if he took his eyes off him for even a moment.

But as he took another glance at Loki, he noticed how he seemed to be thinner than the time he had held him in his arms. Suddenly he couldn't find fault in Thor's thinking at all. He didn't know how he had not noticed it before that Loki was not eating enough.

The guilt that assaulted him, thinking about how he had been trying to avoid said man for months now. All because he was confused and scared.

He knelt down beside Loki to get as closer look at him when he noticed the small glowing marble- like ball; it was very much like the one Thor had picked up after his mother was gone. He picked it up and pocketed it. It wouldn't do for the last memorabilia from his Mother was lost when Loki woke up.

"Wow, that is a whole new meaning to Royal intrigue, Thorston. Reindeer Games is kidnapped royalty, also raised as royalty. We could make a Netflix series out of this stuff. I'm sure people would watch that."

"What do you mean by this Casket thing. If it sustains the planet, how come your father took it with him to Asgard?" Bruce was always level headed. Steve had forgotten all about anything that was not related to Loki. Very remiss of him as a team leader, but even the reprimand was faint in the back of his mind.

"Father took it so that the Jotuns could not get strong again. They had tried to invade Midgard which is why Asgard took action against them. They were setting up homes on your ice-covered land" Thor suddenly sounded so defensive it made Steve jerk his head up to look at him. His face had lost his sad look. Now he just looked angry.

"You went to war with a planet because they wanted to live in Antarctica?! Thor, except for weird government experiments, that land is useless to us!" Bruce was starting to get a little green around the corner of his eyes, but Steve didn't think he could mention it without causing a situation, with the Hulk. He wisely kept quiet.

"The All-Father had forbidden any kind of travel to Midgard. They were the only ones to break the rule and got what they deserved." The hate in his voice was something Steve had never heard before. Thor had always seemed like an accepting guy who could forgive great misdeeds. Suddenly, Steve wasn't so sure anymore.

"Why would your father control who comes to Earth?" Steve joined the conversation for the first time.

"Because he is the All-Father." Thor said it in a way that said it was all the reason anyone needed. "He did not think Midgard was ready for the interference of the other realms."

"WAIT! Does that mean, we could have had connections to other planets if your father didn't declare us the jar of forbidden cookies?!" Tony sounded so angry Steve could only guess what he was thinking about, probably all the advanced technology the aliens could have shared with us.

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Natasha Romanoff remembered Fury's words when years ago they had talked about the alien invasion. Earth was still hilariously out-gunned. But apparently someone had made it so.

Did this mean the other planets had been visitors on Earth and still wanted to come to Earth but King Odin was forbidding it?

She suddenly thought about all the mythologies that said how the gods had come from the sky. Every big religion was based on some different kind of god that had helped humans develop themselves. Maybe during those times, aliens had stroked their egos by playing God.

Would they come back to Earth if they got news that Earth was trying to reach out to other planets? But what would Odin do if some benevolent or probably big ego species who would help Earth if only for how much praise they would get for it came to Earth?

She did not think until Odin gave his green light, anyone friendly would come to Earth. The thought didn't please Natasha at all. It was time to call Fury again.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You have not answered my question yet, Thor. What will happen to those Jotun- people if your father has their planet sustaining Casket?" Bruce's voice was taking a deeper tone that Steve didn't think anyone else noticed, not even Natasha- she was staring at Thor as if she could dissect him with her eyes.

Thor seemed to think about it for a moment and it made Steve hope that whatever had caused the change of attitude in the alien would go away but he was proven wrong. "I do not know. And I do not care. But my guess would be that the realm might die. Perhaps in another thousand years. When I went to Jotunheim, there wasn't anything except for ice and snow. But the warriors in Father's army have told us tales about destroying their palace and homes. Can you believe that they built homes and grew crops with ice?"

"You did call them Frost people" Clint nervously said.

"Aren't they Loki's people? Does he know what is happening to them?" Bruce said the question sceptically, but after spending so much time with Loki even if they didn't talk most of that time, Steve knew that Loki was extremely possessive. Even if he didn't know his people, the fact that they were his people would make all the difference in his mind.

"Those are not his people. He has a home in Asgard." The way he said it made him think Thor did not care at all for the people of Jotunheim, which of course his previous words had indicated but Steve wanted to give his friend a chance to prove he didn't mean what he thought he had meant.

Thor did not seem to be in any kind of hurry to accept Loki. But he did not seem to be in any kind of way willing to let Loki go, either. This behaviour reminded Bruce of a child he had had as a patient who didn't want a toy but would not give it to another child, because it was his. It was horribly possessive. Objectified Loki in a way that not even the most backward of husbands spouting traditional warp about their wives could.

It made Bruce sick to his stomach. After his discussion about science and sexual preferences in the lab with Loki, Bruce had thought a lot. About what Loki had said. What he had implied. But it had made him go green around the gills so to say, and he had locked the thought away from his mind. "Thor, look at your brother. He is a Frost Giant no matter what you say."

"He is my brother! Not a filthy Jotun!" Thor's roar of words bounced off the walls of the room and made everyone still for a long moment where everyone was tense.

"That's pretty hardcore denial, huh." Tony sounded properly confused, it made things so much worse.

Steve didn't want to think about any of this. In a corner of his mind he would admit he wanted to sit on the couch in the movie room beside Loki and watch him as he watched some film or the other.

"Let us move him to somewhere comfortable first." He moved to grab Loki's unconscious form as he said those words, when suddenly Thor leapt from the other side of Loki to grab his hand with a hurried "Stop."

But he hadn't been fast enough, Steve had already taken hold of Loki's shoulder. It distressed Thor so much that he tugged his hand even harder. "Friend, you shouldn't touch Loki. You will get frostbite." His words rushed and his hand insistent in his pulling.

This time, he let Thor pull his hand away. He showed his hand to the Asgardian. It was perfectly fine. "How?" Thor's voice sounded strangled. He held up his own hand, black with terrible frostbite covering half of his palm.

He looked down at his hand. It really was fine. completely normal. But why?

"I don't know," his whispered words felt terribly loud in the room.   
_


	7. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It has been a few months since Loki fell unconscious and Steve has to go on being Captain America.

Steve made his way through the battle. It was almost over; the Avengers would once again emerge victorious. He was covered in blood, guts and slobber. Some mad scientist had tried to mutate animals but had not been too successful.   
Steve didn’t know what the man had planned for the animals to turn out but he knew that feral and twice their original size wasn’t the plan.  
As he bashed another large dog that tried to chew off his leg, he felt entirely done with the day.   
Why could he not have a normal day? Looking at the battle field he tried to find any stranglers but the two pigs that remained were being shot by Tony.   
“Well, that’s over.” He winced at how tired his voice sounded.   
“Well now is the time for-” “If you say shawarma, I will gut you, too, Tony.” Natasha at least, it seemed sounded sane.   
“I was gonna say it is time for a long shower.” Tony sounded so petulant it made Steve sighed.   
“Not a bath in your jacuzzi?” Clint’s voice came from the comm but Steve still couldn’t see him from where ever he was perched.   
“I don’t think I wanna cross ‘bathe in the blood of my enemies’ from my bucket list just yet.” He said it so casually that Steve could only grimace in disgust.   
“Not another word, Tony.” Thankfully Tony was still properly afraid of Nat.   
The ride to the tower was extremely uncomfortable for everyone, except Thor, who seemed in a good mood. And from what he had gathered by his interactions with Thor, killing big, dangerous animals seemed to be a common, favoured practice in his home.   
He suddenly wondered if Loki liked to hunt animals, too? Somehow, he couldn’t picture it.   
While Thor seemed thrilled about being able to hit things with his hammer, having watched animal planet documentaries with Loki had made Steve realise that the liked all things nature.   
Wondering what he would think of these animals. He was sure the fact that Steve’s team had run around chasing overgrown animals would give him a real kick. Especially, the chicken. Steve grinned, even as his face cracked with dried blood as it moved, he grimaced.   
He closed his eyes and sighed, he missed the other man. 

Morning runs were some of the few joys of his day that were still left. He liked the thrum of his blood as it moved. The stretch of his muscles in his legs, the dull pain in his calves.   
Steve, privately, was always grateful for the Doc’s serum for things that were not related to fighting. Back in his time, before the war, Steve had longed for the physical prowess that Bucky had. The ease with which he could do everything that made Steve feel like he was about to kneel over.   
He wasn’t jealous of his friend, only sad about his own inability. It always made him curse himself. Why wasn’t he the perfect man that his father had been. His father, for all that he had never even seen the man, had been perfect.   
It was something that was set in his mind the same way it had been told, that sun rose from the east. Never to be doubted.   
Just for one moment, every now and then, which wasn’t very many times at all, he wondered what his father would think of him now. A soldier and a leader. A national icon of strength and courage. Steve liked to think, he would have made his father proud.   
He thought about his mother a little more. For many reasons. And at many times a day. When he was cooking something from his own time. Remembering how his mother had made it for him, standing in their tiny kitchen and swaying with a song shew would sing that he had never heard before. She would turn to him then, for no reason than to smile at him, bright and sunny. The safest place for him to ever be.   
He slowed his pace, wondering if Loki’s mom had been the same. Bright and sunny and safe. The surest home for him.   
Remembering the grief filled screams that had stuck inside his mind, he knew she had.   
Suddenly his heart longed to hold the sorcerer just as tightly as Bucky had held him. If only for a moment, he wanted to ease his pain.  
Steve had, in the months past, stopped questioning why the other man was always near the surface of his thoughts. Just that he was.  
It was another movie night for the team, where everyone barring Steve and Thor would fight each other to recommend a movie everyone could watch.   
Bruce, as expected, always voted out things that could cause any kind of trouble with Hulk. His only opinion, and words were, “No, not that one.”   
The past few days Nat had been more frightening than he could remember outside missions and he had his suspicions about it. But he was also smart enough to not say anything.   
Even Tony shut his mouth, a big miracle that needed celebrating- in silence, when she glared at him. And so, the Mightiest heroes of Earth watched movies that were labelled, ‘Rom-Com’ while Nat sat in Clint’s lap and stuffed her face with ice cream.   
That had definitely answered all his suspicions but as a gentleman, he neither voiced his thoughts nor asked any questions. Not even when her feet migrated to Bruce’s head and shoulder and curled, who was sitting on the floor, leaning on the couch.  
When her tub of ice cream was nearly gone, he went to the kitchen to bring her another one. The smile she gave him made him think of Bucky’s little sister; missing teeth, rosy cheeks and pig tails. He smiled back.   
Sitting beside Thor, he watched ‘Notting Hill’ he suddenly pictures himself as the struggling male and the stressed female almost at once.   
He connects to the guy’s inability to express himself as well as his poor financial status. Living in a depression, especially after his mom was gone had made him little better than a beggar on the street and only thanks to Bucky and the neighbourhood grandmas that had known his mother when she was alive.   
The girl’s part that called to him was not any one thing that he could name. After he became Captain America, he had a long line of girls and sometimes, even discreet offers of guys, to spend the night. There were many who wanted him to be a notch on their bedpost. Like a trophy wife, except it didn’t last past the night.  
The struggle to connect with each other reminded Steve of himself and Peggy. With the war and the fights, even a single moment past their kiss in Howard’s lab had been impossible. And he wondered, sitting on that couch, surrounded by people who were almost as helpless as him in being able to choose what they wanted to do.   
But he remembered his mom’s words. When he would come home from a fight looking like he’s been hit by a truck, wanting to cry but desperate to be strong. Wanting, needing something, anything to change.   
“There is no point thinking about it now, son. Just be careful next time.” She would say it with a bright smile and sad eyes and Steve would try, as long as he could, to stay out of a fight, to not make him mom feel sad for him. But someone was always bullying another and he had to fight. Cause no one else would.   
She would never tell him no, but she would still be sad. Always tell him to be careful.   
When he thought about the next time, his mind conjured up an image of Loki, sitting beside him, reading a book that was beyond his comprehension on every level.  
It made him think of the night he had been crying all over Loki. He still did not want to acknowledge why he had been seeking comfort for his hurts from Loki; not wanting him to even know that he was in need of comforting.   
Right now, he was only willing to admit only part of what he was feeling. And that was that Steve missed Loki. “I miss him.” He hadn’t known he had said it out loud until Bruce leaned against his leg and Clint nudged his shoulder and Nat placed her leg from Bruce’s shoulder to his lap. Even Thor clasped his shoulder before letting go.   
He smiled; he didn’t think they would do this if they knew Steve was missing Loki instead of Bucky. Not that he didn’t miss Bucky.   
He just knew Bucky would come to him when he was ready.  
He hoped the same was true for Loki.


	8. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The search for Loki's spectre leads them to Sokovia and things spiral down from there.

The Avengers were gathered around the common room coffee table, faces serious as they discussed how they were going to attack another Hyrda base. Tony had tracked Loki’s spectre to this base. Where Tony suspected they were doing some high-level experiments with it which could only mean high level problems for them. Steve frowned, Hydra always managed to make new and dangerous scientific weapons that no one else knew about.   
Even with the tesseract gone, they were back to it.   
“Then let’s go. To Sokovia.”  
Sokovia had been a disaster. Steve felt exhausted, the only thing that had gone well was that they had met their objective. Being able to retrieve the spectre had made the otherwise failed mission a bit easier to tolerate.   
Talking to Maria made his head hurt. He just wanted to know about their abilities, not the scientific jargon that was better left to Bruce and Tony.   
“English, please.” His voice, he knew had lost some of it’s warmth, but he didn’t worry about it. Maria was a fellow soldier.   
“He is fast and she is weird.” The exasperation in her voice didn’t help him. Neither did her answer. He knew that. But apparently no one knew anything else.   
Her words still echoed in his mind even after he was back in his room.   
“They are Sokovian orphans who signed for the government programme for experimenting.” The look of disgust on his face as she had said it. He didn’t want to, but he felt himself sympathise with them. They were young. Far younger than he and Buck had been when they joined the war. Even living through a Depression, for some years, Steve had had a childhood, with all its goods and bads. They hadn’t had that.   
Steve decided, if he could, he would help them. They just needed to be taught that what they were doing was wrong.   
The young always had time to fix their mistakes.  
It was the night before Thor was supposed to take the Spectre to Asgard. It was a night of celebration that Tony had quickly turned into a party. Steve was never quite able to forget that Tony was Howard’s son when he did things like these by the dozen. He had attended more parties in this century than in all of his life combined.   
Sighing, he smiled. After that disastrous mission, everyone needs time to reboot.   
He watched as Bruce and Nat danced around each other. Stopped from going to each other by something that he could see or understand but he did understand that neither of them liked being apart.   
With a flash his mind went to all those breakfasts after That Morning. He wanted so badly to talk to Loki but he could not decide even in his head what he could say to him.   
He walked to Bruce. “What’s going on here?” he tried not to sound too teasing. Bruce was like him, shy.  
“Nothing! That is nothing.” It was almost cute how nervous Bruce was. “Doesn’t look like nothing to her.” He pointed to Nat, still at the bar, staring at them before looking away.  
Bruce looked surprised but pleased, before looking resigned. Like there was no hope for anything. That would not do.  
“As maybe the world’s leading authority on waiting too long: Don’t. You both deserve a win.” He meant it with all of his being. They were good people. Even Nat. and deserved happiness. If they found it with each other, he would be the happiest for them. 

He went to Thor, who was subsequently surrounded by a couple of veterans, talking about alcohol. He grinned, why was he even surprised.   
“Oh, no-no! See this, this was aged a thousand years in barrels made from the wreck of Gronhill’s fleet. It is not meant for mortal men.” Thor sounded so proud and insistent. Until, the second veteran pulled out his sass and called Thor ‘blondie’ after which Thor acquiesced.   
He didn’t even have to ask for Thor to pour him a glass. Steve had some small hope to be able to get drunk from space liquor but he just wanted to taste it even if it did nothing but make him piss, later.   
Smiling at Thor, “It made me feel something.” He didn’t have the heart to tell that it made him just the slightest bit tipsy and warm, nowhere near as pleasantly buzzed as Thor clearly was. Still, it was better than nothing.   
And it made him realise, Thor didn’t count him as a mortal man. He didn’t know how to feel about that.   
-  
Finally, he sighed, the party was over, he had seen the veterans being carried out on a stretcher and hoped they were fine. Now it was just the Avengers, Maria and Colonel Rhodes.   
Suddenly his attention went to Clint’s voice, “It’s a trick!” Oh, they were talking about Thor’s hammer. Mew- nee? Urgh, hammer was better. He was the only one with a hammer any way.   
“Oh no, it is more than that.” He sounded proud, and loud; he saw Maria wince a little.  
“Oh, “whosoever, be he worthy, shall have the power.” What EVER, man. it’s a trick.” Clint was very clearly drunk. Enough to have forgotten the Asgardian Queen’s visit.   
“Well, please be my guest.” Thor sounded smug, but Steve knew he was feeling something else, too, just not what it was. But he was clearly indulging them, like children.   
Some jeering and Clint went and tried his luck with Thor’s hammer that he put on the coffee table. And fails. “We know you have had a tough week. We won’t hold it against you if you can’t get it up.” And there went Tony, making dick jokes. Steve wanted to shake his head.  
“I’ve seen this before, right?” Clint tries again. “I just don’t know how you do it!” And went to his seat to sulk.  
More jeering and Tony went to try his luck. Standing before the table, “I’m never one to shrink from an honest challenge. It’s physics.” he asked Thor, “So, if I lift it, then ill rule Asgard?”   
“Yes, Of course,” Thor couldn’t have sounded more patronising if he tried.   
Then Tony went and got his armour glove. A moment later, Rhodes had his, too, as they both tried to lift it at the same time. “Are you even pulling?” “Are you even on my tram?”   
“Just represent! Pull!” Rhodes shouted and they tried again, for a while before giving up, “It’s rigged!”   
“You bet your ass!” Clint laughed. “Steve, he said a bad word,” Maria chimed.   
“Did you tell everyone about that?!” He was never going to live this down. At least Bucky or Loki didn’t hear it yet.   
Tony goaded Bruce into trying, and he acted like a big dork, pretending to be Hulk as he pulled, with all the sound effects. Steve wanted to laugh, but he kept quiet. Though he didn’t miss Nat’s fond look as Bruce made his way back, sheepish.   
Then everyone turned to Nat. She clearly refused, probably the second most sober after him. “That’s not a question I need answered.”   
Tony turned his sights on him and Steve had the distinct feeling Tony wanted him to try just to watch him fail. He pushed it away. He walked up to the hammer and looked at Thor. He had been oddly silent through most of this. But, also seemed pleased? Steve didn’t understand people sometimes.   
With a nod to Thor, he gripped the handle, looking at the others, and pulled. “See. Nothing-” except, the hammer did something more than nothing.   
It moved, it came half a foot above the glass before it dropped back with a dull metallic thud, cracking the glass slightly.  
Steve looked at Thor, who looked just as shocked as he felt inside. He backed off from the table to his seat, mind whirling with all that it meant.   
He remembered Loki’s mom saying, “It is not a test of worth, but a test of love.” Clearly their friendship had developed into something more on both sides.   
Steve felt stunned. And confused. Why would Loki love- “The handle is imprinted, right? Like a security code? “Whoever is carrying Thor’s fingerprints, I think is the literal translation.” There went Tony, with his science trying to explain everything. But this time, he was wrong.   
“Interesting theory, but I have a simple one for you.” He then single handedly lifts the hammer. “You are all not worthy.” He looks Steve in the eye as he says the last word and feels like a threat that no one else hears.   
“Worthy.” A hoarse voice calls from behind them and suddenly everyone is alert. And there stands a broken- looking robot that walks towards them.  
-  
After Ultron is gone, and Colonel Rhodes leaves, they all stand in the dark room that had just hours ago hosted a party. Suddenly, Thor lifts Tony up by the neck and chokes him.   
“This could have been avoided if you had not played with something you don’t understand.” Thor sounded furious. With a murder bot on the loose, Steve could definitely understand.   
-  
The next day found them all sitting with heaps and heaps of files and documents as they tried to find Ultron.   
Steve wanted to scream at something. The only one paying any kind of serious attention to the task was Nat and Him. They needed to find that robot before it killed anyone else.   
“it is not a tattoo; it is a brand.” Thor, however unknowingly had led them all to their next destination. An illegal Vibranium supplier. Just the thought made him shudder as he thought what a killer robot made of his shield could do.  
-  
The ride back from the mission was filled with grave silence. No one wanted to say anything. The only one normal was Barton; having escaped the witch’s mind magic.   
He recalled his vision.   
Standing alone on the dance floor, as all his friends, the Commandos and Bucky and Peggy dance around him. The flashes of cameras and the inebriety of his fellow soldiers. Then came Peggy, pretty and tall and sharp eyes that could cut with a glance.   
When she had told him the war had ended, he had felt relieved before he had felt the loneliness slip in, just like what the ocean had felt like. Until he wasn’t standing in a ballroom but sitting with the team at breakfast, where all of them left. One by one.  
Until only Loki remained. But he didn’t talk to Steve, just stood up.   
He turned blue, slowly, until he turned into golden dust and swept away by the wind; until gold was all he could see.   
He shook his head. He ran his hand over his chest, rubbing the pads of his fingers over the small bump. He assured himself that Loki was very much alive, and safe.  
He looked at Tony as he called Maria, probably to get a status update on things around, Steve couldn’t be bothered too much.   
“Well, the news is loving you guys. Nobody else is.” Her voice sounded emotionless and Steve could only wonder what they were saying on the TV. Nothing good, as always.   
“Go off the grid for a while, until this cools off.” She hung up after that.  
And Barton turned the jet into another direction.  
-  
Standing in front of Barton’s farmhouse, Steve felt like an intruder. Not Tony, the man frustrated him like nobody else could.  
“She is clearly an agent.” Not even trying to keep his voice low.   
Apparently, the ‘agent’s’ name was Laura; who “already knew all their names.” The only part of it that didn’t surprise him.  
Clint’s children come running into the room, “And these are… smaller agents.” He wanted to duct tape Stark’s mouth.   
The only on not surprised by Clint’s family was Auntie Nat. At least somethings were worth smiling even now. The look Bruce sent her way was fond and painful all at once, and Steve wanted there to be more reasons for them to smile.  
-

Steve was chopping wood for the Barton’s, not wanting to be a freeloader like he had been with the Barnes’. But even then, they had been almost family. Here, it was even more important to pull his weight, with Laura being so heavily pregnant. He wanted to apologise to her for troubling her so, but didn’t know how to say it.  
He wondered what Loki would have done had he met Laura or the kids. Sweet kids, those, he smiled before his eyes fell to his right. He shook away the guilt he felt at thinking about Loki in the place where his wrong deeds’ victims were living.  
Tony had copied him, probably not for the same reasons as him. He wanted to talk. Steve didn’t know if he could manage it without screaming. This Stark frustrated him, but he was still his teammate.   
“Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, she tore us apart like cotton candy.” He tried his best to not show all of his anger. He wanted to be Tony’s friend. He had so few- If any of those- left.  
“Seemed to me you walked away just fine.” The judgment in his voice was cutting. So much like the looks the army recruits sent him when he walked into the registration camps. He wonders for a single moment what others would think of how Captain America’s biggest fear was the war itself that had created him.  
“Is that a problem?”   
The words they exchanged were bitter and defensive.   
“Isn’t that the mission? To end the fight? So, we can go home?” Tony sounded desperate but Steve couldn’t find sympathy in his heart for a scientist playing at being a soldier.   
The wood in his hands split in two, splinters dug into his hands. He hadn’t meant to do it. “Every time someone tries to win a war before it starts, innocent people die. Every time.” The words were the truth, from the depth of his heart.   
But what he couldn’t bring himself to say, even in his anger was that, there was no home for him anymore.   
Loki’s sleeping face flashed before his eyes. But it was too late for that. He had messed that up as well.   
With a heavy heart, Steve thinks he shall be the world’s leading authority on waiting too long for as he lives and; perhaps, longer still.  
-  
Fury’s arrival and pep talk managed to bring the team back together in working condition, but Steve longed for the reassurance and comrade-ship of his Commandos and Bucky. People who he could trust.   
But beggars couldn’t be choosers. And in this new world, Steve was definitely a beggar.   
He tried not to think about it, watching as they travelled across the skies.   
-  
They had secured the Cradle. And thankfully, Doctor Helen Cho was still alive if a lot injured. He was grateful for that. She would make life easier for a lot of soldiers. ‘If they can afford it.’ He shook that away from his mind.   
He has managed to recruit the twins, another thing to be thankful for. He was glad, they were kids that needed guiding them along the right path. What soothed his heart was that they had come to the right side of the war on their own. They were good people.  
He felt guilty for ignoring his team member missing even as Clint had asked again and again, “Where is Nat?”  
They had lost Nat into enemy’s hand. He, honestly and a little shamefully, was not too worried. Out of all of them, perhaps apart from Loki, was the one most likely to survive the experience and come out mostly unscathed. But looking at Clint, he had reminded himself to not say anything other than his orders. Nat was Clint’s Bucky.   
Somethings were off limits. They would get her back.  
-  
Not being able to contact Tony and Bruce had made feel like he could pull out all his hair. They had fallen into this mess because of a killer robot. And there they went, trying to make another one!  
Wanda’s words echoed in his mind and he wondered, probably not for the first time, where Howard had gone wrong with Tony to have him make such huge mistakes. Repeatedly.  
“Ulton can’t tell the difference between saving the world and destroying it. Where do you think he gets that from?”  
-  
Standing in the lab as they attacked each other over the need for another Robot, he tried to do his best to not hurt Tony. He forgets that thought with an energy beam to the chest. He wasn’t much successful.   
Then suddenly, Pietro ran and unplugged the Cradle. And again, he was glad to have made the call to let them be part of them. “No, go on. You were saying?” Kid had a smart mouth on him.   
Steve had been counting his eggs way before they could hatch. Thor not only sided with Tony, because of the ‘Waters of Fate?’ but had also powered the Cradle with his hammer.  
He wanted to smack both Thor for using it and for Loki for giving it to him.   
He was ready to shout again when Wanda assured them that the new robot was not like Ultron. Though he didn’t like how infatuated she looked with the machine. ‘Now is not the time!’  
He was stupefied when the Machine ‘Mr. I-am-not-Ultron, -I-am-not-JARVIS. I-just-am’ defended Ultron and then seemed to mourn that he had to be killed and it was Mr. New Machine who was going to do it. Having fought Ultron, he didn’t doubt that they needed a new plan, he wasn’t sure they needed another robot.  
When he had casually handed Thor back his Mew-nee hammer, Steve wanted to fall in a faint, thinking about how Loki loved this MACHINE! The room spun before his eyes for a single moment.  
That was until he realised, Loki did not even know about the Mr. Machine.   
Mr. Maroon had come from Loki’s spectre and clearly, Loki loved it like Steve loved his shield.   
That fact calmed him down enough that he could move again. He patted Thor’s hand as he walked out of the room. The other one who seemed to remember the hammer’s true significance. And needed assurance for the same.   
-  
In the middle of fighting, hearing Natasha’s voice had calmed down a part of Steve’s brain that he hadn’t known had been buzzing until it wasn’t.   
But the fight was still ahead underway. When suddenly, the ground started shaking and rising in the air.   
He once again thought that, “I miss those days when the weirdest thing science had ever created was me.”   
But now wasn’t the time for that.  
“Avengers, it’s time to work for a living.” Well, Tony had got another thing right this day it seemed.   
-  
They were all gathered around the anti-gravity machine Ultron had made, they had to make sure no one got close enough to activate it.  
If it was activated, the city would go flying down.  
The higher it went into the air, the more lives it would take. He didn’t have any way to make it right except to say. “Tony.”  
Wanda was going to guard it and they were going to get the civilians.  
-  
Steve was destroying Bots as he tried his best to get the civilians to safety when he heard Wanda over the comms. “How could I let this happen?!”   
He was glad Hawkeye was there to take care of her, “Doesn’t matter what you did, or what you were. If you go out there, you fight, and you fight to kill. Stay in here, you’re good, I’ll send your brother to come pick you up. But if you go out there, you are an Avenger.”   
He didn’t think Hawkeye realised that he had his comm, if his mutterings of “No one would know” were anything to go by. The amusement was fleeting.  
-When things were starting to look dire for there was no safe way to get the civilians off the city, suddenly the whirling of engines. He looked up to see the Hellicarrier and its lifeboats.  
“Nice, right? I pulled her out of the mothballs with a couple of old friends” - he saw Maria then. “She is dusty but she will do.”  
“Fury! You son of a bitch!” He hadn’t meant to say that, but he couldn’t help falling back on old habits in such dire times.   
Fury’s next words made him glad for his old friend. “Oooh! You kiss your mother with that mouth?”   
The lifeboats were rapidly filled and started flying off to make second rounds.  
Suddenly, Pietro was beside him, “THIS is S.H.I.E.L.D.?” He was proud when he said, “this is what S.H.I.E.L.D. is supposed to be.”  
-  
He was flinging his shield towards another Ultron minion when the city started falling, Wanda had been defeated and someone had activated the anti-gravity machine.   
At the rate they were falling, he didn’t know what would happen to the Sokovians or the surrounding areas.   
There was a lot of screaming that could be heard from everywhere. The city was only half empty. Steve felt his heart clench. “Move it, people! Get as many off the city as you can!”  
“Tony try to do whatever you can to make it come down, gently.”  
“There is no time, Cap!”  
Steve felt his heart clench painfully when suddenly there was a voice behind him, calling his name.   
“You have been busy in my absence, I see.”


End file.
